THE FLORIDA ORCHESTRA | 2018-2019 57
Program Notes
WILLIAM GRANT STILL (1895-1978)
POEM FOR ORCHESTRA
Duration: ca. 14 minutes
When William Grant Still died 40 years ago, he
left more than 150 compositions, including his
groundbreaking Symphony No. 1, which you may
have heard on the last TFO Masterworks program.
Still knew what audiences like, and he blended
traditional European styles with American
spirituals, blues and folk music. His music has been
described as transparent and, above all, honest. At
a time when African-Americans were very much a
minority in classical music, his accomplishments
are all the more striking. He was the first African-
American composer to conduct a major orchestra,
and the first to have a symphony and a grand opera
performed by leading U.S. ensembles.
Anyone who explores the world of Still may agree
that his best works speak in a truly American voice.
This includes his 10-minute Poem for Orchestra,
written in 1944 as a reflection on the violence and
despair of a world war raging into its fifth year.
Unlike the ebullience that permeates his Symphony
No. 1, the Poem opens in catharsis, the orchestra full
of inner agitation, as if trying to find a tonal center.
This may be the influence of the radical composer
Edgard Varese, whom Still studied under at the
Oberlin Conservatory of Music, along with George
Chadwick, a representative of the Second New
England School of American composers.
Chadwick’s conservatism might have crept into the
work’s middle section, with its cinematic, dreamlike
quality – illuminated by one of Still’s finest
melodies. The Poem’s final minutes are as lush as
anything Rachmaninoff wrote, but soon struggle
to resolve something unspoken and uncertain.
Listeners are left with Still asking a question rather
than offering an answer.
Although Still called his Poem a purely abstract
piece of music, without reference to a story line,
his wife, Verna Arvey, said it was “inspired by the
concept of a world being reborn spiritually after a
period of darkness and desolation.’’ Arvey said her
husband based his ideas loosely on these words:
Soul-sick and weary,
Man stands on the rim of a desolate world.
Then from the embers of a dying past
Springs an immortal hope.
Resolutely evil is uprooted and thrust aside;
A shining temple stands
Where once greed and lust for power flourished.
Earth is young again, and on the wings of its re-birth
Man draws closer to God.
MASON BATES (b. 1977)
CELLO CONCERTO
Duration: ca. 25 minutes
Professional orchestras for years have focused on
younger audiences, the future ticket buyers needed
to keep these important cultural assets afloat.
Making the job easier are emerging composers
who not only understand what appeals to these
listeners, but who add vital new works to the
orchestral repertoire.
Consider the case of Mason Bates. His club/classical
project Mercury Soul is transforming commercial
dance venues into hybrid musical events, and his
opera The (R)evolution of Steve Jobs is one of the
best-selling productions in the history of the Santa
Fe Opera. His symphonic music has gained a large
audience by infusing social media and electronic
sounds, and he has been praised for helping move
the symphony orchestra into the digital age and
dissolving the boundaries of classical music. Bates
recently was honored as the first composer-inresidence
of the Kennedy Center for the Performing
Arts, and Musical America named him the 2018
Composer of the Year.
That’s a full plate for the 41-year-old Virginia
native, called the most-performed composer of his
generation. Making the rounds to help secure that
distinction is his Cello Concerto, which has been
played frequently since its premiere by the Seattle
Symphony, with soloist Joshua Roman, in 2014.
When TFO Music Director Michael Francis first heard
the piece, he wanted to bring it home.
“This is music in a real American language,’’ Francis
said. “And it uses rhythms in such a powerful and
imaginative way. I’m excited we’re doing it here.’’
Roman will be at the cello in his TFO debut. The
25-minute work is abstract and follows no narrative.
Cast in three movements, it opens with a plaintive
melody that floats over a restless orchestra, moves
into a lyrical and emotional slow movement, and
ends in a blaze of virtuosity – with the cellist at one
point trading his bow for a guitar pick. Bates blends
the blues into his harmonies, as well has his interest
in electronic music, which add a driving pulse to the
rhythms.